Witty comedians wasted in witless 'Bringing Down the House'

Yes, there is comedic pleasure to be derived from hearing Steve Martin intone the words "bitch slap," and from watching the austere Joan Plowright get stoned. But not much.

"Bringing Down the House," a vehicle for Martin and the newly Oscar-nominated Queen Latifah, is the rare film that manages to be simultaneously bland and offensive. You've seen the trailer (and believe me, every funny line from the movie is there), so you know the story: Martin plays Peter, an unhappily divorced lawyer who meets Charlene (Latifah) on an Internet-arranged blind date, thinking she's a blonde barrister. Instead, she's a convicted felon who wants Peter to help clear her name. In the process of invading his life, she teaches him some hip-hop lingo, counsels him on being a better father and helps him re-connect with his ex-wife (Seattle native Jean Smart, looking glamorous).

This all sounds like a bad '80s Whoopi Goldberg movie, but it might have worked; the pairing of Martin's hilariously icy brand of humor and Latifah's appealing, laid-back warmth could have been a kick. Instead, thanks to a witless screenplay by first-timer Jason Filardi and timid directing by Adam Shankman ("The Wedding Planner"), it's an endless parade of rich racist white people and streetwise black people, all of whom behave inexplicably. Presumably other kinds of people exist in the world, but not in this movie.

Martin, who can be brilliant with the right material (I kept thinking longingly of his jazz-playing attorney in "All of Me," an American comedy classic), is here cast as the straight man — sidekick Eugene Levy gets most of the funny lines, while Martin fumes and fusses and generally looks beaten down.

And his character at times makes no sense: He's supposed to be the good guy, and yet he forces Charlene — at a point in the movie in which they've already become friends — to wear a maid's pink uniform and pretend to be his servant in front of a guest, when there's no reason whatsoever for him to be so demeaning. (Nor for him to even own a maid's uniform, when there's no maid in sight. Does he dress up in it on slow evenings?) This is presumably supposed to be funny, but it just makes us dislike Peter, which throws the movie off balance.

Latifah (who's said to have rewritten much of her dialogue) comes off better, sashaying through the film with a wicked smile and an uncanny on-camera ease. She's had an off-and-on movie career, as directors don't seem to know what to do with her breezily larger-than-life persona. Note to Shankman: Watch "Chicago" and "Living Out Loud," as many times as necessary.

Ultimately, "Bringing Down the House" is mostly a chore to sit through, and even the presence of a French bulldog wearing an Elizabethan ruff (played, with impeccable dignity, by a canine actor named Linus) can't save it. A general rule: If even a dog in a costume can't help, the movie's in trouble.

Moira Macdonald: 206-464-2725 or mmacdonald@seattletimes.com